Earthquake safety: Will city require retrofits for brick buildings? West Seattle presentation ahead
For years, the city has been working on a plan to require earthquake-safety retrofits for unreinforced masonry (brick) buildings – the type that sustained the most damage during major earthquakes in 1949, 1965, and 2001. With the proposal getting closer to Seattle City Council consideration, and a presentation is planned in West Seattle at this Wednesday’s meeting of the Southwest District Council. According to documents on the city website, about 1,000 buildings in the city would be affected; they are primarily commercial and housing buildings, usually multiple stories, built with red bricks. According to a preliminary city survey, more than 50 of these buildings are believed to be in West Seattle; reviewing that list, we note that some are on development sites – including the California/Alaska corner building that’s just been demolished. The public is always welcome at Southwest District Council meetings; this one will be at 6:30 pm Wednesday (November 6), downstairs at Southwest Teen Life Center (2801 SW Thistle).
Learn about the ‘Power of Parents’ with WSHS PTSA
As a followup to last month’s community meeting about youth drug/alcohol-use concerns, a special parent workshop is planned during this Wednesday’s West Seattle High School PTSA meeting, and all are welcome. Here’s the announcement:
Join the WSHS PTSA on Wednesday, November 6th, from 7 pm-8:30 pm in the West Seattle High School library. We will be hosting Mike Graham-Squire from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), who will present a “Power of Parents” workshop – a parent guidebook that will help families talk to their kids while using positive parenting techniques that have been proven to help reduce underage drug and alcohol use will be distributed to attendees.
We’ll entice you with tantalizing details of the upcoming Reaching for the Stars auction! Have you donated your item and purchased your ticket? It will be a very fun night – and the best part is that it will benefit the students and staff at the school.
All are welcome. To access the library, enter the building through the side door in front of the visitor parking stalls.
That’s the main lot, at 3000 California SW. P.S. Regarding the WSHS gala – ticket deadline is just one week away; here’s where to get tickets and info.
West Seattle weekend scenes: On the water
The car carrier Tijuca is headed to Tacoma right now after being anchored off Don Armeni for a while yesterday/last night, catching the eyes of some WSB readers who asked us about it; we photographed it this morning. Tijuca wasn’t on the official Port of Seattle schedule, so we’re wondering if it came in to wait out the windstorm. It is passing western West Seattle right now, according to MarineTraffic.com. These types of vessels pass that side of the peninsula fairly often, but not usually after a detour into the bay.
Speaking of the windstorm:
David French shares that beautiful photo of Alki Point Lighthouse, seen from the Seattle-Bremerton ferry on Saturday.
And a scene from Seacrest:
Carolyn Newman caught sight of a sea lion chowing down on her/his catch. Thanks to Carolyn and David, and to everyone who sends photos to share!
West Seattle winner: Congratulations, model-horse champ Amelia!
Congratulations to Amelia – at right in the photo – who won Overall Champion in the children’s division of the Northwest Congress model horse show last weekend. Proud mom Karen shared the photo of her daughter with a show judge. Karen explains the competition, which, for kids, isn’t about creating the models, but working with them, in intricate detail. The show, held in Kent, involved people bringing their model horses and putting them, Karen said via e-mail:
… into ‘classes’ by what real breed the model is most like. The show is divided into OF (original finish model as you get them from the store) and CM (models that you customize by resculpting and painting.) The children’s portion of this show was only for OF models. But there is a lot that goes into it!! The kids first have to not play with and scratch up the model, which is not easy! Then , they have to assign a breed to the model based on what the model looks like, what color it is and how it’s moving. Often, the box will say it’s one kind of model but the color is wrong for a real horse, or the model is not really representative of that breed. Then the kids must get a show number and create a master horse list of the horse’s individual show number, the breed, the horse’s name (that they make up themselves) and what class the model will show in.
This is a very competitive thing at adult level. We met adult collectors … who had over two thousand models that they show. Shows are held all over the country and they have national championships once a year.
The show was well run and the children’s judge was great! She gave so much helpful advice to the kids and explained why she judged as she did. All of the kids there were such great sports, too! They listened and took in the advice, with good cheer and they all congratulated each other when they placed or won. It was an amazing day!
You can find out more about the model-horse-showing hobby here.
West Seattle storm aftermath: Some still without power
(35th/Webster signal still without power when photographed 2:30 pm Sunday)
11:52 AM: Seattle City Light says it’s down to fixing the smaller outage pockets now, from among the tens of thousands who lost power during Saturday’s storm. Among the hoping-to-be-fixed-soon pockets is a section of east Gatewood, where anyone driving California SW last night would have noticed the streetlights burned out for a two-plus-block stretch. Mariko just e-mailed to say, “We’re in the 7500 block of California Ave. We’re going on over 24 hours now. They’re reporting 1:40 for power to be restored!” This outage area has never been displayed on the SCL map and still isn’t shown, so we don’t know how many homes are affected.
12:26 PM UPDATE: Part of Sunrise Heights is affected too, east of 35th – Brian has been tweeting about it.
P.S. If you spot fire crews in Gatewood – that’s for a gas leak around 39th/Othello, not related to the power outage so far as we know.
3:01 PM UPDATE: 35th/Webster stoplight still out, too. But we just spotted City Light on California in the outage zone – not sure of their eventual destination, though. One resident says the “estimated restoration time” has been pushed back yet again – to 8:40 pm. SCL says via Twitter that fewer than 1,000 homes/businesses remain without power – but they are in more than 100 separate locations:
This area is not on the map, SCL tweeted earlier, because it’s part of the area with old 4-kilovolt equipment – as was an outage earlier this fall. We checked with SCL then and they say all that equipment will be replaced by 2015.
6:51 PM UPDATE: Anyone in West Seattle still out? If so, this SCL message is for you:
Crews continue to make progress. 470 left to be restored but have to respond to over 100 locations to complete work. If still without power call 206-684-3000 to make sure we know about your problem. At this stage have to rely on customer calls to know where problems are.
West Seattle Sunday: What’s up today; plus, bonus storm scenes
Calmer weather today – but we have two bonus photos from our windy Saturday, before our look at what’s up for your Sunday. Above, a dash through the spray at Constellation Park south of Alki Point, courtesy of Chaucer Wells Photography; below, taken in the same area, Tina Doherty‘s view of kites:
Today, as noted earlier, you just might see whales from that area instead! Now, the calendar highlights:
FARMERS’ MARKET BACK TO REGULAR SPOT: Just a reminder that after last week’s Harvest Festival setup in the middle of the street, the West Seattle Farmers’ Market returns today to its regular location, the parking lot at 44th/Alaska. Year-round, 10 am-2 pm.
WEST SEATTLE ULTIMATE FAMILY FRISBEE: Now at High Point for the fall season, 31st/Myrtle. 11 am, all welcome!
SOUTHWEST LIBRARY ARTISTS’ RECEPTION: 2 pm, it’s the reception for this year’s Community Art Show at Southwest Branch Library. (35th/Henderson)
COOKING WITH BEER: You’re invited to brew up a recipe including beer and bring it to today’s 3 pm meeting of the West Seattle Cooking Club. Find them at Beveridge Place Pub. (6413 California SW)
LIVE MUSIC: Acoustic soloist Zach Bellas at C & P Coffee Company (WSB sponsor), 3-5 pm. (5612 California SW)
Fauntleroy sinkhole spotted after overnight water break
Early this morning, Mary messaged us from Fauntleroy about some emergency utility work, with water running down Barton near 38th (map). This morning, Bob Powers shares photos of an apparent sinkhole spotted in its aftermath, and writes:
We noticed this morning that a sink hole is developing in the grassy area in front of the water tower at 38th Ave SW and SW Barton Street. Seattle Public Utilities were working on a broken water line situation very early this morning (about 1:00 a.m.) a few yards east of the sink hole. SPU was notified of the sink hole at 7:45 a.m. this morning and said they would send someone right out. The sink hole is about six feet in diameter and about five feet deep.
I don’ know if this will develop any further but I thought it might be good to alert the neighborhood.
We’ll go over to check later this morning.
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